Sound in Lefebvre's trialectic

In last week's seminar, we began talking about Henri Lefebvre's trialectic of space. In The Production of Space (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 1991), Lefebvre identifies a "conceptual triad" (p. 33) that he employs to think about space and society:

• Spatial practices or practices of space (perceived) involve the everyday interactions of people in space, ensuring "continuity and some degree of cohesion" (p. 33). Practices of space affect and are affected by the social space of a particular society in a "dialectical interaction" (p. 38).
  

• Representations of space (conceived) are connected to the sense of vision, the hegemony of city planning practices, and language and the sign. Representations of space tend to be the "dominant space" in a particular society with a particular mode of production (p. 39).

• Representational spaces (lived) foster resistance to the imposition of representations of space and their hegemonic visions, challenging their apparent transparency while nonetheless often being dominated by them (p. 39). Representational spaces are "linked to the clandestine or underground side of social life" (p. 33) and provide room for creativity and imagination.
  

Lefebvre calls for an uprising of the body against language, the sign, and representations of space, criticizing their focus on the abstract mental realm at the expense of embodied lived experience. The knowledge of the body, he argues, precedes the abstract knowledge of the intellect (p. 174), and the trialectic of space must be able to "grasp the concrete" (p. 40). So, how might one think of Lefebvre's trialectic in terms of the embodied experience of hearing and sound in urban built environments?

Lefebvre writes, following Tomatis, that hearing and sound help us with the "lateralization of perceived space. Space is listened for … and heard before it comes into view” (p. 200). In terms of spatial practice, sound acts as a mediator that locates the body in relation to other bodies (p. 200) in the space of everyday urban reality. Packed like sardines in a crushed commuter train, we use the sounds of others' shuffling feet and voices to inform our own movements and actions (that is, if our ears are open).

Representations of space rely on vision and abstraction to attempt to determine experiences of cities. Writing in Steinberg and Shields's What is a City? (2008), C. Tabor Fisher notes that "[t]hrough abstraction, persons, space, and social relations are viewed metonymically as passive, objectified images" (p. 160; my emphasis). But regulatory structures and their effacement of sensory difference also operate in the sphere of acoustics. This dispute over 'noise pollution' in the pre-Katrina French Quarter suggests that the Big Easy had its fair share of attempts to standardize its soundscape. That article mentions quantitative measures of sound, which have been criticized as overly abstract ways to conceive of sound when unaccompanied by a qualitative consideration of context (see Raimbault, M., & Dubois, D. (2005). Urban soundscapes: Experiences and knowledge. Cities, 22(5), 339-350). Fisher points us to another useful quote from Lefebvre, where he cites "the silence of the 'users'" of space as the key problem with administrative planning entities (1991, p. 365; my emphasis). The silence of displaced residents of New Orleans, which I've written about, is one related example, where bureaucratic abstraction came to have very real consequences for people's ability to be heard.

Finally, spaces of representation, lived experience, the "object" of the body (Lefebvre, 1991, p. 201), are "'mixed' space[s]" (p. 203). The body "preserves difference within repetition" and "is also responsible for the emergence of the new from the repetitive" (p. 203). A focus on this aspect of space can reveal "an affective kernel or centre" in urban space (p. 42). Hmm ... affective kernel or centre--pet architecture? In terms of sound in particular, I wonder if this project is an example of a space of representation. Its product is a "symbolic work" (p. 42) that draws on Mancunians' affective relationships with their soundscape to represent a new way of understanding the sounds of everyday urban space.

Other ideas? ...

WALL-E

In a recent seminar, we saw a picture of a floating city designed to house survivors of a natural disaster. Someone compared it to the spaceships in the movie WALL-E (excellent--definitely watch it). That comment was perfectly timed, because I had been writing a blog post about this little nugget, a clip from a 20-minute short documentary that's included in the DVD's special features:



The movie has a few different messages, some fraught with tension. The fact that a film which is highly critical of North American big-box consumer culture has firm ties to the Disney corporation is one of the most obvious. But what I found so lovely about WALL-E, much like what I found endearing about the idea of pet architecture, was its appeal to affect and irrational feeling.

The spaceship on which the movie's exiled earthlings have been circulating for 700 years is the epitome of a rational, cold, hegemonic vision--Lefebvre's representations of space taken to the nth degree. Talk about city design--every part of its operation, from the jumpsuit uniforms of its residents to its robotic staff, is planned, leaving little room for spontaneity and effacing the sense of difference and diversity that's understood to be characteristic of cities. Its inhabitants circulate in chairs outfitted with in-your-face screens that move along seemingly predetermined routes, and we quickly discover that the real brains behind the operation isn't the well-meaning, bumbling human captain--it's a robot named Auto. Back on Earth, WALL-E putters around in the midst of a technological wasteland, the shining promise of futuristic visions covered in layers of dust and rust. Yet in the midst of the movie's technologically determined, robotic world, the simple, timeless act of holding someone's hand is still the ultimate goal.

The documentary clip above is, I think, analogous to this idea. Here is one of the most respected film sound designers in Hollywood, with techno-beeps and computer-generated boops at his fingertips—and yet (to my memory) a good one-third to one-half of the long-version documentary focuses on his delight at finding the amazing analog sound contraptions Disney had kept around since the days of ye olde Mickey Mouse. These sounds are tangible and concrete in a way computer-generated sounds may not be. They represent a playful ingenuity and resourcefulness that hasn’t lost its charm.

I found Ben Burtt's comment about creating a world of sound very interesting as well. I'll likely be writing about that one again.